August 11, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

When I was little in the darkest postwar years in Germany, I remember my mother saying many times that no matter what, the record of the magnificent social experiment of "Third Reich Germany" and the valor of the German soldier could not ever be destroyed - not that the Dark Forces wouldn't try.

She said the sun would still shine, and Western man's enemies would still carry with them, wherever they went, their own sinister shadows, for all the world to see.

My mother said: "Can they blot out the sun? Can they jump over their own shadow?"

I remember trying it out on the sidewalk. It was a lesson that impressed me to no end.

Well, half a century later, they are still trying to blot out the sun, still trying to jump over their own shadows, sometimes in comical ways. I'll give you a few excerpts, all coming from the Reuters wires:

* A well-known fast food chain, McDonalds Austria, is in deep trouble over its latest advertising gimmick, which has placemats featuring a map of the country as devised by Adolf Hitler.

What did McDonald's advertising geniuses do? Feature the swastika? No, not at all. The mats' division of Austria into seven districts, instead of the current nine, exactly matches Hitler's plan for the Alpine nation which he annexed in 1938!

Horrors!

McDonald's Austria marketing director, Barbara Enzinger, called the politically incorrect gaffe "an unfortunate coincidence.'' McDonald's Austria hastened to assure the Forever Persecuted Ones it will remove the mats from its 75,000 outlets immediately.

* In Undine, Italy, a wine bottling firm refused to take its "Fuehrer" wine off the market despite a storm of protest.

The wine, which shows Adolf Hitler on the label, comes in two types: "Sieg Heil" (Hail Victory) and "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer" (One People, One Empire, One Leader) - two of his best-known slogans.

The firm successfully defended a 1995 court case arguing correctly that the "Fuehrer" brand was part of a complete historical set. The wine costs around $6 a bottle.

Apparently no one objects to this firm's wines named after Cuban guerrilla fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Russian communist leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin, and communist ideologue Karl Marx.

* It's been known for some time that the Germans have been deprived of free speech by laws passed by German legislators who want to please the Chosen. These laws have severe criminal penalties that deter Germans from saying anything that might be construed as approving of anything the Hitler administration did.

They have even gone so far as to change the dialogue in reruns of the old "Hogan's Heroes" 1960s sitcom, which was about American POWs canny manipulation of silly German guards.

The German version of Colonel Klink no longer can say "Heil Hitler". When Klink now gives the salute, he says such as ". . . the corn flowers grow high" .

Don't laugh. This must be serious.

Ingrid

Thought for the Day:

"The gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use."

(William James)

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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